[The Navy as a Fighting Machine by Bradley A. Fiske]@TWC D-Link bookThe Navy as a Fighting Machine CHAPTER III 21/37
_So long as a country can keep its people in employment, so long the people will live in comparative order_.
But when there are many unemployed men in a country, not only do their families lose the means of subsistence, but the very fact of the men being unemployed leads them into mischief.
Should the ports of any great commercial nation be suddenly closed, the greatest danger to the country would not be from the enemy outside, but from the unemployed people inside, unless the government gave them employment, by enlisting them in an enormous, improvised army. It will be seen, therefore, that the blockading of the principal ports of any purely commercial country would be a disaster so great that there could not be a greater one except actual invasion.
Another disaster might be the total destruction of its fleet by the enemy's fleet; but the only _direct_ result of this would be that the people of the country would have fewer ships to support and fewer men to pay.
The loss of the fleet and the men would not _per se_ be any loss whatever to the country, but rather a gain.
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